


The Food of Love

by Clea2011



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Food Poisoning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Modern Era, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 07:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17320805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clea2011/pseuds/Clea2011
Summary: Merlin's a great cook.  Arthur's never cooked in his life and wants to prove himself.





	The Food of Love

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to fill the 'food poisoning' square for h/c bingo. Written late at night and no time for beta because the deadline is just over 4 hours away and I need to get this up! Hopefully it's not too full of errors.
> 
> I was quite tempted to call it Destiny and Chicken, but felt that was a bit too obvious!

The way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.

Arthur had often heard this said and agreed that it wasn’t entirely without an element of truth.  He had been dating Merlin for several months now.  Merlin was an amazing cook.  Arthur had been wooed with delicious roast dinners, sizzling stir-frys, home-made pies with a crust so perfect he was sure the angels themselves must have had a hand in making them, curries just the perfect mix of fragrant and spicy, and a pizza that Merlin had made from scratch right in front of Arthur.  He’d even hand-tossed the dough like a professional. 

The latest fabulous dish that Merlin produced for him was something Italian that Arthur couldn’t pronounce or remember but it had tomatoes and focaccia and a side salad in a rainbow of colours.  And then it was followed up by what Merlin said was a simple affogato but was accompanied by tiny home-baked amaretto biscuits. 

Merlin really was a keeper, and Arthur had no intention of letting him go.  But sometimes he worried - what if Merlin didn’t feel the same?

Arthur was good at lots of things.  When Merlin needed some extra shelves in his living room Arthur had happily put them up for him.  Okay, so maybe Leon and Lance had helped him a tiny bit, but they were Arthur’s friends so it was almost the same as Arthur doing it.  Right?  And he helped Merlin with the shopping, because Merlin’s car was a horrendous broken-down old thing and Arthur’s car was bigger and might actually get them home.  But they always seemed to end up at Merlin’s place, with Merlin doing all the cooking. 

“Do you want me to help?” Arthur would ask.  Merlin would just smile at him and shake his head. 

Sometimes it made Arthur feel a bit useless. 

“Just cook a meal for him yourself,” Leon advised when Arthur offloaded his concerns. “Do something simple.  And don’t worry, Merlin adores you.”

That was all very well for Leon to say.  Arthur had never cooked in his life.  Cooking was for girls.  Well, okay, perhaps there were many male chefs who would argue otherwise and it was a pretty well-respected profession for a man.  But Arthur had always been encouraged to take up sporty hobbies and to study hard while he was growing up.  His father employed a housekeeper to do all the cooking for them.  Arthur had done a single cookery lesson when he was eleven and his father had complained to the school about it because Uther Pendragon’s son did not do servile tasks.

Arthur never had another cooking lesson.

It was only food.  How hard could it be?  After all, his school had wanted to teach eleven year olds about it.  A twenty two year old man should find it very easy.

“Try something easy,” Leon advised.  “Look, get some cooking sauce and a couple of chicken breasts.  Chop them up and fry them till they’re golden brown then pop them in a casserole dish with the sauce on top.  The sauce jars always have instructions on them.  You can’t go wrong.  Get some pre-prepared vegetables and stick them in the microwave.  Again, instructions are on the pack.  And get some garlic bread to go with it.”

Arthur must have looked lost because Leon sighed and took him down to the local supermarket.  They ended up with enough ingredients to make what Leon claimed would be a simple but tasty meal.  Arthur hoped he was right.

\---

Merlin had sounded surprised but pleased when Arthur invited him over for dinner that evening. 

“Are we ordering in?” he’d asked, then looked rather shocked when Arthur had announced that he would be cooking.

As Leon had said, it was easy enough as long as you followed the instructions.  Arthur chopped up the chicken and fried it as Leon had instructed.  He even sent Leon a picture to ensure that he had done it correctly.  Then he put the chicken in the new casserole dish he’d bought when out with Leon, and poured the sauce on top.  It _was_ easy.

The vegetables were also easy.  Small hole in the packet and then pop the packet in the microwave.  Simple.  Arthur got that all ready to do at the end.  He was really quite pleased with himself, it was going very well.

Leon had suggested boil in the bag rice as being another thing he’d struggle to do wrong.  And just to be on the safe side, they’d found a large focaccia with herbs and olives and rosemary that Leon suggested he warm in the oven for a few minutes at the end then slice up.

There was a fancy ice cream for dessert, all Arthur had to do was scoop it out and stick a wafer in it.

It all went very, very well.  Merlin arrived when the chicken in sauce was starting to smell really quite good.  Arthur sat him at the table, poured him some wine, and then went back to sort out the last few things.

He drained the rice, cut open the vegetables and dished it all out.  It did actually look edible.  Arthur thought he might try this again.  Finally he whipped the bread out of the oven, sliced it up on the chopping board, then put it on a plate in the middle of the table. 

Merlin immediately sneaked a piece. 

“Mmm, warm!  Did you make this yourself?”

“I… baked it,” Arthur told him.  It wasn’t actually a lie.  Arthur had put it in the oven after all.

Merlin beamed, and finished off the piece he’d taken.  “It’s really good! I’m starving!”

Proudly, Arthur brought out their dinners. 

Perhaps it wasn’t as polished as the meals Merlin prepared, but Arthur didn’t think it was at all bad for a first attempt.  And Merlin looked delighted by it, even after he’d tasted it.

“Arthur, this is great!  I didn’t know you could cook!”

Arthur just smiled happily and tucked in.  He was pleased to see that Merlin not only cleared his plate but managed most of the focaccia as well.  Arthur barely got more than one piece.  It was a definite success.

\---

Arthur woke up alone.

That was an unusual occurrence these days as Merlin always stayed the night, or Arthur stayed at Merlin’s. Arthur wanted Merlin to move in, and perhaps the meal was a step towards that.

Something had woken him though.  It was still pitch black outside, and his alarm clock told him it was two in the morning.  Beside him, the bed was still warm.  He heard the flush go in the bathroom and just smiled to himself, anticipating a repeat performance of the sweet lovemaking they’d enjoyed earlier. 

Merlin didn’t come back. 

Arthur heard the flush go again, and then again.

“Merlin,” he called.  “Are you okay?”

There was no reply.  Getting worried, Arthur climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of shorts, then headed out to the bathroom.  The door was shut, so he tapped on it.

“Merlin?  You okay?” he asked again.

And then the bathroom door opened.  Arthur took a step back, covering his nose because the stench that wafted out was pretty awful.

“God, Merlin!  That’s bad!”

Merlin looked terrible.  He was white as a sheet and clutching his stomach. 

“I don’t feel very well.”

That was obviously an understatement as Merlin immediately turned and retched into the toilet.  And that was just the beginning of it.

\---

Arthur didn’t go to work the next day. 

Obviously neither did Merlin.  Merlin spent the day in Arthur’s bed, or in Arthur’s bathroom.  He looked exhausted, and there was nothing at all that Arthur could do.  The doctor advised just rest and plenty of water because there was no way that Merlin could keep food down. 

Arthur was fine, which at first made him think that it wasn’t his cooking that had made Merlin sick.  They’d both eaten the same thing, after all.  Although Merlin had eaten most of the bread, but bread didn’t make you ill. 

By the second day Merlin was still looking pale and tired but the vomiting had stopped and the cramps lessened.  He still needed a clear path to the bathroom on a regular basis though.

On the second day Arthur worked from home so that he could still look after his boyfriend.  Not that he could really do anything other than offer water at first, but then later Merlin was able to start eating a few bland foods like toast and bananas.

Merlin did look worried when Arthur handed him the plate of toast and mashed banana but took it anyway.  He checked it over very carefully, then took a tentative bite.

“You think I poisoned you,” Arthur sighed sadly.  “I shouldn’t have tried cooking.”

Merlin shook his head.  “If you had then you would have been sick too.  It had to be something else.  That chicken was well-cooked.  The only thing I had different to you was the bread but even then you had a piece of that too.  It was a good meal.  None of it tasted off.”

Arthur still couldn’t help feeling guilty.  Somehow he was sure it was his fault. He sat with Merlin, watching movies in bed and occasionally going out to get any foodstuffs that Merlin thought he’d be able to eat.

By the third day Merlin was up and about again, his stomach settling down.  Arthur supposed that they would always be eating at Merlin’s from that point onwards. 

So it was a surprise to come home from work to find Merlin waiting for him with the exact same food that Arthur had cooked on that fateful night.  He looked really apologetic.

“I asked Leon what you bought. I want you to show me what you did,” Merlin told him.  “Just in case.”

Arthur still felt horribly guilty about the food poisoning and at that point he’d do anything that Merlin asked if it made things better.   He started again, going through the entire routine, this time under Merlin’s scrutiny.

And it was all meeting with Merlin’s approval, right the way through. 

“Are you doing anything different?” Merlin kept checking.  It wasn’t helping Arthur’s nerves.

“No!”  Arthur took out the focaccia from the oven.  It was warm and smelled heavenly.  He lifted it off the tray and onto the chopping board.

“Stop!” Merlin slid off the stool that he’d been sitting on in the middle of the kitchen.  “Arthur, what are you doing?”

“Cutting up the bread?”

“Oh my god!  And you did this last time too?  Without washing the board?”

Arthur bit his lip.  He wasn’t quite sure what he’d done wrong, but he knew without a doubt now that he’d been the one to poison Merlin.  “Yes.”

“Arthur, you have to be careful with raw chicken,” Merlin took the bread and threw it into the food waste bin. 

“That’s not chicken.”

“The chopping board!  You used it to cut up the chicken – with the same knife I think!  That’s why I was ill, the bacteria was on the warm bread.”

“I ate the bread too!” Arthur protested.

“You only had a little piece, perhaps it was one of the last pieces cut, that’s why you weren’t ill.  The knife had been cleaned off when it cut the slices I ate.  I pretty much ate raw chicken!  Didn’t they teach you basic food hygiene at that posh school you went to?”

Arthur shook his head.  “I wasn’t allowed to do cookery.  My father didn’t think it was something boys should do.”

Merlin rolled his eyes.  “Typical. That man’s such a dinosaur.”

“Don’t dump me!” Arthur blurted out.

“Dump you? Why would I dump you?”

“Um, because I poisoned you?” Arthur pointed out.

“Arthur, you’re such an idiot sometimes.”

That wasn’t fair, but Arthur decided to allow it just this once.  Especially as Merlin was smiling fondly at him and pulling him in close for a kiss.

“I won’t cook again, I promise,” Arthur said as they broke apart.

“Oh yes you will,” Merlin insisted, helping him dish out the remainder of their dinners.  “From now on you’ll be helping me cook, and learning what to do.  It’ll be something new we can do together!”

Couples cooking.  Arthur could think of things he’d much rather they’d be doing together. 

“Can’t wait.”

“Liar,” Merlin smirked, and kissed Arthur again.  “I’ll make a cook of you yet.”

\---

Many months later they invited Arthur’s father round for dinner. 

Uther’s horrified face when they told him who had cooked the meal made it all worth it.

 

 

 


End file.
